HomePODCAST RECAPSRECAP AND REVIEW: The Jim Ross Report with Bully Ray on being the last of his kind, the legends who were most influential on his current character, why WWE won’t let anyone get to the level of Rock or Austin, the former Impact wrestler who has “it”

RECAP AND REVIEW: The Jim Ross Report with Bully Ray on being the last of his kind, the legends who were most influential on his current character, why WWE won’t let anyone get to the level of Rock or Austin, the former Impact wrestler who has “it”

The Jim Ross Report – Bully Ray Dudley – The Last ‘Real Heel’

Welcome to another week of Slobberknocker Audio with good ole J.R. Coming up on today’s show is Bubba/Bully Ray who is currently a host on Busted Open Radio with Dave LaGreca.

2:06 – What’s On J.R.’s Mind

J.R. and Jerry Lawler were in Cleveland last weekend and had a great time doing various media, going to the Browns game and their Hilarities event.

Jim congratulates the Golden State Warriors who were named S.I.’s Sportsperson of the year.

Lots of good things are being said about John Cena’s new movie Bumblebee. John will be on the January 7th RAW. It will be interesting to see how he is positioned.

In a recent interview, J.R. was asked how he would book the main event of WrestleMania. At this point, he feels the women (Rhonda, Becky and Charlotte) are the closest thing to being ‘close the show’ over.

J.R. is a fan of Escape At Dannemora.

The TLC match with Seth and Baron Corbin was the highlight of RAW. Past that, there wasn’t much else that resonated. There seems to be a lack of continuity to the shows that disconnect the viewer from any type of emotional investment.You can’t have turns on a weekly basis otherwise, we don’t know and don’t care about who you are. That said, these issues are correctable.

Seth could be the guy but there needs to be a combined effort, including by Seth to make that happen. That said, J.R. doesn’t feel the commitment to Seth.

The Sooners have another Heisman trophy winner. This is the 2nd year in a row that their QB has won the trophy. This has never been done before in college football.

J.R. is hoping for OU to upset Arkansas to go to the championship football game

Around the Wrestling Horn

James Storm is challenging Nick Aldis for the NWA title. It should be a great match.

MLW is in Miami this week. December 13th is their first live broadcast on BeiN sports. Check out www.mlw.com.

WOW will debut on AXS TV on January 18th.

ROH Final Battle is on December 14th.

J.R. says he has not broadcast his last match on AXS TV. He can’t be on air until past the end of March but feels he will rejoin the team in some capacity next year.

AXS TV will air a 10 hour Kenny Omega-thon on December 28th

J.R. doesn’t think Cody will be with ROH for much longer.

TLC is on December 16th on the WWE network. The card is loaded. Daniel Bryan defends the WWE title against A.J. Styles. Becky Lynch, Asuka and Charlotte Flair have a triple threat coming up on December 16. Rousey defends against Nia Jax and Ambrose vs. Rollins for the IC title.

34:17 – Slobberknocker Of The Week

Candidates:

Russell Westbrook who is doing well for the Oklahoma Thunder

The Miami Dolphins for beating the Patriots

Kendrick Lamar for all his nominations

The Cleveland Browns for treating J.R. and Jerry Lawler well this weekend

Kyler Murray for winning the Heisman

Derek Henry who ran a 99 yard touchdown

This week’s winner is Larry ‘The Axe’ Hennig who passed away on December 6th.

42:58 – Pet Coon Goofy Award

Candidates:

Verizon Communications and any other company that lays off employees before the holidays.

Sister Mary Margaret Kruper and Sister Lana Lang, two long time nuns, have been accused of misappropriating $500k of funds for personal trips and gambling.

Google who found a bug that exposed people’s personal data.

A fan who got ejected from the Hilarities show with J.R. and Jerry Lawler.

Ric Flair, who got cleared by his doctor to take bumps. J.R. hopes this never happens. Period.

People who were trying to get video footage of Big Cass having a seizure and posting it to social media

This week’s winner is the politically correct Christmas Song controversy for the banning of ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’.

54:08 – This Week In Wrestling

December 15th, 1963 – Japanese Wrestling Pioneer Rikidozan passed away from complications from a stab wound. He created the Japanese Wrestling Alliance and trained Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba.

December 12th, 1985 – Kengo Kimura and Tatsumi Fujinami win a tournament to become the first IWGP Tag Team champions defeating Antonio Inoki and Seki Sakaguchi.

December 13th, 1990 – Starrcade 1990 featured the Pat O’Connor Memorial Cup. The Steiners beat The Great Muta and Mr. Saito to win the Pat O’Connor International Cup tournament. Lex Luger defeated Stan Hansen in a Texas Lariat match to win the US Title. In the main event, Sting retained the World Title defeating the Black Scorpion.

December 13th, 1998 – Rock Bottom: In Your House – Mankind defeated WWF Champion The Rock when Rock passed out from the mandible claw. Mr. McMahon declared the title would not change hands because Rock didn’t submit. Steve Austin defeated Undertaker in a buried alive match which earned him a spot in the Royal Rumble.

December 12th, 1999 – Armageddon 1999 – Ms. Kitty won the Women’s title in a four corners evening gown match. Chris Jericho won the IC title defeating Chyna by submission. Triple H defeated Vince McMahon in a No Holds Barred match.

December 14th, 2008 – Armageddon 2008 – There was an 8 Divas Santa’s Little Helpers match with Kelly Kelly/Maria Kanellis/Michelle McCool/Mickie James vs. Jillian Hall/Maryse/Natalia/Victoria. In the main event, Jeff Hardy defeated Edge and Triple H in a triple threat match to win the WWE title.

A: To some degree yes. There’s no reason he can’t be the man based on his look or ability. It’s a timing thing and sometimes there’s not an exact explanation to explain why. If J.R. had a wrestling company he would have Ziggler on his team.

Q: Comment about the Magnum TA/Mr. Wrestling 2 angle

A: Originally, Bill Watts wanted to make Magnum the heel and Wrestling 2 the face. J.R. said they had the roles reversed. They changed to roles and the story worked

Q: Will J.R. be doing more MMA based podcasts?

A: J.R. would like to do more MMA and boxing next year.

Q: J.R. has said it’s hard for a babyface to get over in today’s environment due in part to the defiant male audience. Is a portion of the audience tired of a PG product and want a more edgy and cool babyface.

A: The difference is the stars. Cena, Austin and The Rock would be as successful in this era. The skill level of the performers has to be increased. J.R. is not big on the cool babyface thing unless it’s organic.

Q: Do cycles in wrestling’s popularity fall along with the US economic cycles?

A: Pro wrestling is about one thing, creating new stars. J.R. doesn’t think it’s based on the economic cycle. During the oil crisis in the Mid-South, the TV ratings were high but people couldn’t afford to go to the shows.

1:19:57 – Bully/Bubba Ray

J.R. welcomes Bully Ray to the podcast.

J.R. was saying that Bully Ray is a good marketer and entrepreneur. He knows what his demo is and what they want. Even though Bully Ray isn’t wrestling as often, he is still making a living in the business.

Bully Ray took a look at the wrestling business and wanted to give it the one thing he feels it’s lacking, a true heel. Not just a bad guy but a real old school heel that old school wrestling fans can appreciate as well as the younger modern fans.

Bully Ray is heel 101. He just took what worked for people back in the day and applied himself to it. He believes Bully Ray is the last one of its kind (heel).

J.R., says the WWE has a bunch of talented people but says they are losing the audience with questionable creative for example, Lio Rush and Drake Maverick.

Bully says it comes down to too much entertainment and not enough sport. When he first saw Drake in TNA, he told Jeremy Borash that Drake had it. He agrees with J.R. that so many things don’t make sense.

Bully tries to watch wrestling as both a professional and a fan. The things that don’t make sense often insult his intelligence and wonders if other people feel that way. However, the when the WWE look at their numbers, everything trends positive so why would they change?

J.R. believes the issues the WWE are having are because they are not paying attention to the details.

One of the issues Bully Ray has with WWE is that they open the book at 8:00 and close it at 11:00. He’d like to see it be more episodic TV where you have to tune in the next week to see what happens. But he thinks it has to do with people’s attention spans. Bully likes his wrestling to have storytelling and character development which is something he prides himself on in ROH. He wants fans to enjoy wrestling from a story point of view.

J.R. thinks there are little fixes that can be made that would increase positive perception of RAW.

As much as RAW is dropping the ball, Smackdown is doing better. Bully Ray is more invested in the characters and the wrestling. There are a bunch of positives about this show and it’s night and day between the two brands. Despite Smackdown being the better show, it’s always labelled as the B show.

J.R. suggests maybe shaking up the writers between RAW and Smackdown but Bully Ray says regardless, everything goes through one final filter, Vince McMahon. It’s hard to figure out why RAW isn’t entertaining while Smackdown is.

J.R. thinks when the XFL starts up, there may be a transition where Vince is more involved in football and less involved in wrestling. Bully says if that happens, the final filters become Triple H and Road Dogg which he would not have a problem with. Bully says Road Dogg is the most valuable asset to WWE right now but they also have a bunch of great wrestling minds there like Michael Hayes.

Bully Ray says the two guys who were most influential but in an indirect way on his current characters were Freddie Blassie and Terry Funk. He believes a true heel should never elicit the emotion of joy. There should be no happiness, excitement or joyfulness around the heel and you should never smile when watching a heel.

Everyone hated Blassie and Funk and nobody was cheering for them. If Bully is out there and people are cheering him, he gets angry because he’s not doing his job. He doesn’t want to be the entertaining guy. He wants pure hatred. He also wants to have full control and command of the fans emotions. Bully wants fans to hate him more than they like his opponent.

Bully Ray says you don’t get to the top of the mountain if you are not chosen, however, that’s not the way it should be. He brings up Steve Austin who was initially told not to talk but took a chance and became the big star. Back then it worked. However today, if you’re not told to say that, how can you get to the top?

Bully Ray brings up Seth who is very talented but is not at Cena, Austin or Rock level. He thinks the WWE will not allow people to ever get to that level again. This surprises J.R.

Bully Ray brings up John Cena told Vince he wasn’t going to Saudi Arabia. Vince McMahon does not like to be told no. If you take the biggest stars in the last 20+ years (Cena, Austin, Rock), they could do what they wanted to do without Vince’s approval. Austin walked out but came back and had a job. Rock is in Hollywood and John walks on water when it comes to the WWE and told Vince no. The WWE doesn’t want people to get to a level where they have control or say over their characters.

Vince once told Bubba that it’s very rare that one of the boys gets leverage on him. But if they do have leverage and don’t use it, shame on them.

The WWE are creating stars and letting them get big as they (the WWE) want them to be but there’s a ceiling. Roman, Ronda and Charlotte are at the top of that ceiling.

ROH Final Battle

The Flip Gordon/Bully Ray match is the culmination of 8 months of cohesive storytelling. If you like your wrestling episodic, good storytelling, good character development, good vs. evil and a final match that resembles a fight, you should watch this match and PPV.

Bully believes in ROH. When he left WWE, he had options a lot of people did not know about. He could have stayed in the WWE or gone back to Impact but knew he couldn’t go back and top what he did before. He chose ROH because it reminded him of ECW. If Bully Ray is on the back nine of his career, he’s going out the way he came in, telling stories and doing pro wrestling and sports entertainment the way he was taught, getting fans emotionally invested. And he wants to do it in a place he can do it, tell his stories and get other guys over.

TLC

Bully Ray says it’s difficult to get four guys on the same page when it comes to tag team wrestling but to get six guys on the same page and then add the tables, ladders and chairs is very difficult.

The first two TLCs have never been topped however, Bully was hoping they were going to put The Bar, The New Day and Usos in a TLC for the tag team titles because those three teams had an opportunity to either match or surpass Edge/Christian, The Dudleys and the Hardys’ TLC matches because they have chemistry. That is the highest praise he can give them.

A lot of wrestlers have come to Bully and let him know they watched TLC I and II to get inspiration. It was the bar early on for what this match is supposed to be. He stresses the most important thing in these matches is psychology. We know there are going to be crash and burn spots and gratuitous violence. Make sure that stuff makes sense. The idea is to climb the ladder and win belts. Everything else around it is icing on the cake.

After the WM 17 match, the teams felt the payoff was a little soft and let J.R. know. Bubba said it felt like J.R. kicked him in the balls

Jim wishes Bully Ray luck this weekend. Follow him on Twitter @BulyRay5150 and they sign off

1:52:54 – Show Wrap

J.R. goes through his 5 star reviews. Next week will be the second part of the Bubba interview as well as Jim Cornette. The following week will be the show from Hilarities. J.R. wishes everyone a great holiday season and that’s a wrap.

Solid podcast from J.R. The interview with Bully Ray started a little slow but it definitely picked up near the middle. Bully Ray has some good views about the business and I was surprised when he said the WWE doesn’t want the wrestlers to get over to the level Rock, Austin and Cena are. This falls in line with something Vince Russo said in Truth With Consequences (also covered on this website) that the WWE doesn’t want anyone to get over. Overall, I would recommend this podcast based on the Bully Ray interview. As always, J.R. has his usual segments (What’s On J.R’s mind, Slobberknocker of the week etc). I might suggest the ‘This Week In Wrestling’ portion for the info on Japanese wrestling but otherwise, stick to the Bully Ray interview. Definite recommend.

About Joe:

Joe is a long time wrestling fan from Toronto. He is a co-host on the Pull Apart Podcast with Jeff Rush and Caitlin Lavelle as well as a contributor to www.pwpodcasts.com. One of his life goals is to be a guest host on one of Wade Keller’s post-show podcasts. He doesn’t consider himself any sort of expert, he just likes wrestling. Check him out on Twitter and Instagram @ja113.

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